FENG SHUI (風水)

Feng Shui (風水, "wind and water") is one of the best-known Chinese metaphysical practices in the West.

Roots. Lie in Daoist natural philosophy and geomancy, practiced in China since at least the Han dynasty (2nd century BCE).

Historical application. Used for selecting burial sites, constructing temples, palaces, and cities.

20th-century spread. In the 20th century, the system spread worldwide, often in a simplified "decorative" form that draws criticism from professional masters.

Schools of Feng Shui

Form School (Luan Tou, "walking dragon")

Work with the landscape. Works with terrain, mountains, rivers, and the placement of structures.

Compass School

The luo pan. Uses the luo pan — a specialized compass with concentric rings — for precise orientation according to the eight trigrams of the Bagua and the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching.

Flying Stars School (Xuan Kong Fei Xing)

The most complex. The most technically sophisticated: it constructs a temporal matrix of numbers 1–9 moving through the Lo Shu square depending on the period and orientation of the building.

Bagua — the Key Scheme

Eight sectors. Bagua (八卦, eight trigrams) is the key scheme of the system: eight sectors corresponding to:

• 8 trigrams
• 8 compass directions
• 8 life areas (wealth, fame, relationships, family, health, children, knowledge, career)
• 5 elements

A map of space. The placement of objects in space relative to the Bagua and their correspondence with elemental cycles creates a "map" of the house or room, from which recommendations are derived.

Place in Errarium

A unicum — working with space. In Errarium, Feng Shui (#51) is unique among all methods on the platform: it is the only method that works primarily with space rather than with personality or events.

Analogs by toolset. Its closest relatives are Wu Xing (#24) and the 9 Star Ki system (#40), which use the Lo Shu square.

The fundamental distinction. A spatial orientation, rather than a temporal or biographical one.